


Nothing Wants To Die

by PessoasLily



Series: The Winchesters Live [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Boy King of Hell Sam Winchester, Consort Dean Winchester, Episode: s02e22 All Hell Breaks Loose, M/M, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-13
Updated: 2017-04-13
Packaged: 2018-10-18 13:58:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10618371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PessoasLily/pseuds/PessoasLily
Summary: Dean doesn't make the deal to resurrect Sam.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Tom Waits Fall of Troy
> 
> This work is inspired by the song. It's beautiful and worth a listen.
> 
>  
> 
> [The Fall of Troy](https://youtu.be/ucuObpv7nZ0)
> 
>  
> 
> This is my first fic. Comments welcome.

“You’ll have to find your own way home, boys.” - Tom Waits from Fall of Troy

 

Crouching down in the rain soaked mud, Dean held his dead brother in his arms. Blood from the wound coated his fingers and he readjusted his grip, leaving a bloody handprint on the tan coat.

Sam’s body was still warm and Dean pressed their cheeks together. There was no breath, no comforting sound of embarrassment.

He didn’t see Bobby run after the killer, didn’t see him when he returned. He picked up Sam’s body, the tall muscled form now dead weight in his arms, and struggled to stand. Dean felt nothing.

At some point they got Sam’s body in the car, he vaguely remembers sitting in the back with Sam’s head in his lap. Bobby driving in the rain with no sense of urgency.

They carried Sam’s body into an old cabin, settled him on a bare mattress in the only bedroom.

Bobby left to get supplies though what Dean didn’t ask or care. He sat on the bed next to Sam, fingers tracing the fine chiseled features, the soft sweet mouth he never knew.

Hours passed, the body got cold. Dean lay down next to him, pulled him into his arms and waited. Nothing happened.

He tucked his hand beneath Sam’s shirt, moved it to rest over the unbeating heart, and thought about the summer Sam almost drown in a lake.

Dean was 11, just starting to realize girls weren’t gross. A pretty redhead his age kept walking by him, her shapeless body and flat chest puffed up in proud display in her dark green bikini. Dean thought she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. His body grew more than sunshine warm and he focused on her instead of his little brother.

A scream from one of the mothers shocked Dean out of his lustful trance. He turned toward the lake to see what she was pointing at. Sam, alone at the a rest platform 20 yards out, was struggling to stay afloat. The blood from a gash on his forehead getting washed away every time he sank beneath the black surface.

Dean moved on autopilot. Running toward the bank and jumping in fully clothed. He could hear others jumping in behind him but he got to Sam first. Wrapping his arm beneath Sam’s and pulling his head up out of the water the way dad taught him, he used his free arm to swim to the shore.

Sam crouched down on all fours and began coughing and spitting up water. The gash on his forehead bled profusely, running into his eyes. Dean ripped off his shirt and held it to the wound. Someone called 911. Dean put a reassuring hand over Sam’s frantically beating heart and tried not to think about what could have happened.

Six stitches later and a story from Sam about losing his orientation under the dark water and coming up beneath the platform, Dean watched his little brother sitting safely, happily in a diner booth eating the largest sundae they made. It was in exchange for Sam’s promise that he’d never tell dad about what happened at the lake.

Dean carded his fingers through Sam’s hair, ran his fingers over his forehead looking for the old scar. He needed Sam’s heart to beat more than he needed to breathe.

Sometime later Bobby coaxed Dean from the bedroom. He couldn’t remember the last time he ate, the last time he used the bathroom. It felt like his body was shutting down organ by organ, his soul in an unstoppable death spiral.

He refused to eat, took a piss right outside the door and returned to stand vigil over the only person in the world that mattered to him. If Bobby complained, Dean didn't hear it.

A day went on like this, then another. The body started to smell, flies buzzing around the stiflingly small room. Dean kept his face buried in Sam’s jacket, the fabric still carrying the scent of the cheap laundry detergent they used. He refused every attempt Bobby made to get him to let go. He didn’t even cry. He lay beside Sam and let his soul die.

Bobby called in other hunters. Ellen and Jo, and a man he’d never met - Rufus. Bobby said it was time to let Sam go, that it would be what Sam would want. Dean broke Rufus’ nose when he pulled him up and dragged him out of the room.

No matter how much he kicked, cursed, threw himself around in Rufus’ tight grip, he couldn’t stop Bobby, Ellen and Jo from taking Sam out of the cabin and into the backyard. A funeral pyre was already built, a rickety ladder leaning next to it. Dean watched as they struggled to get Sam’s body up and in place. Watched as they lit the wood. Watched as the flames began to consume.

The smell of cooking meat, burning wood and smoke filled the air. Nobody moved. Nobody spoke. If they did, they wouldn’t say what they were all surely thinking.

Dean had failed. Dean got Sam killed. Dean let Sam die.

Eventually the fire died down. Dean sat on the cold ground, his fingers seeking out clumps of dirt, crushing them in his palm, then spreading it around him. A slow, dumb burial for a bad, useless man.

Ellen and Jo were the first to leave, stopping to grip Dean’s shoulder and say something about Sam being with John. Bobby and Rufus walked back to the cabin, Rufus saying something about a bottle of whiskey.

Dean stayed on the ground, eyes flat and vacant, and watched the remaining embers warm the ash that was once his brother.

Dean wanted to die.

It was just after dawn when Bobby came to get him, hauled him up against his body and helped him to the car. Dean thought briefly about the time Bobby did the same when he was a teenager and had found Dean drinking piss beer with some other kids in the woods. He had helped Dean into the house, helped him upstairs and into the bathroom. Dean had thought his time bent over the toilet was the worst night of his life. He was wrong.

It took six months of living with Bobby, a constant low buzz from drinking alcohol to numb his mind, for Dean to declare he was tired of grieving and it was time to return to hunting. Bobby tried to reason, changed to yelling, and eventually resignation. There was no stopping Dean. He needed to be alone, needed more pain and death to try to bury the images and scents of Sam’s last few days. The body’s last days, Bobby would say. Dean would tell him to fuck off and return to drinking.

Bobby helped Dean restock the Impala, gave him a bit of cash, and hugged him like he was never going to see him again. Dean said he’d be back in the spring and Bobby didn’t bother to deny the lie.

Six more months without Sam with as many hunts Dean could find, Dean began to accept it was harder to commit suicide by monster than he originally thought. His body was covered with scratches and cuts, broken fingers and burnt skin, but nothing he came across came close to matching his rage. He killed without stopping to sleep, ate enough to stay sharp and alive. He hustled pool, picked pockets, stole from a few perfunctory hookups. Many things Sam would have disapproved of if Dean hadn’t gotten him killed. He could find nothing to put him out of his misery and in the end the monster he needed came to him.

He was staying at some shithole in Montana, researching a hunt for a spirit that was pushing unfaithful men down stairs, when he heard a hard knock on his door. Grabbing the gun that was never far, he went to the door and pointed it at the wood.

“Who is it?”

“Open the door, Dean.”

Impossible. That was Sam’s voice. Dean’s heart picked up into a maddening pace. His breath caught in his throat as he pulled the door open without a thought to his safety or the impossibility of Sam being on the other side. 

“Sam?”

Sam stood tall and alive, clothed in a startling white suit. “Hey, Dean,” he said with a toothy, dimpled smile.

Dean reached for him, pulled Sam close so fast that Sam briefly lost his balance and huffed a laugh in Dean’s ear. 

“Yeah, Dean. It’s me.”

“How?” Dean asked, his body humming in excitement as much as panic.

Sam put one large hand over the back of Dean’s head, held him tighter to his chest and spoke softly in Dean’s ear. “It was the demon. The one who killed mom.”

Muffled in the bizarre suit jacket, Dean said, “I don’t understand. Why would the demon bring you back? How? We burned your body.” Then lower, barely above a whisper, "I got you killed."

Pulling away a short distance, Sam put his finger beneath Dean’s chin and looked him straight in the eye. “You did not get me killed. Nothing that happened was your fault. I was destined to die. It had to happen.”

Dean felt himself sway, a result of the dizziness from holding his breath. Sam gently steered him into the motel and into a chair by the research laden table. “Still hunting, I see.” Sam took the chair opposite and moved it close enough to Dean’s that their knees were touching.

“Where were you?” Dean said.

Dean sat numbly as Sam began to speak. “I was in hell.”

“What?! Why?” The thought of Sam being in hell all this time while Dean was on a year long, self-absorbed bender made him ill.

“It’s ok. It had to be. Azazel said it was necessary.” Sam reached over and took Dean’s hand in his, his surprisingly soft fingers brushing over Dean’s bruised knuckles. Where had the callouses gone?

“Azazel?”

“The demon that killed mom.” 

“You were in hell and the demon that killed mom resurrected you?”

Sam smiled indulgently. “Yes.”

“But why you? You never did anything to go to hell. If anything, it should have been me that died. Me that went to hell.” Dean began to tremble, his rage-filled grief always one thin layer of skin beneath the surface.

Squeezing Dean’s fingers, Sam smiled and shook his head. “No, Dean. You were meant to live. I had to die and go to hell to claim my throne.”

“Throne?” Dean was beginning to feel like a parrot, an increasingly hysterical parrot.

“There were trials, tests, rituals. Death was the first. Conquering my torturer was the second. It took me a year but eventually I had Alistair on my rack.” The look in Sam’s eyes and the smile he made after saying this made Dean shiver.

“A century? You’ve only been gone a year!” A parrot. Dean had no thoughts of his own.

“Time moves differently in hell,“ Sam replied. His voice gentling again to a soothing understanding. “It doesn’t matter. I went through the trials, killed Lucifer in the final step, and now I’m here for you.”

“Lucifer? Lucifer exists?”

“Not any more,” Sam said with a wink.

Dean just blinked.

Sam huffed another laugh at Dean’s confusion but continued his explanation. “Mom made a deal with Azazel to bring dad back after Azazel killed him. I was the price, though it was always going to be this way.”

Dean shook his head as if that would clear everything up.

“Look, I’d like to explain this all to you in detail but right now we need to go.”

“Go where?”

“It’s time to make you my consort.” Sam said, his voice and demeanor so self-assured that Dean didn’t quite hear his meaning.

"What the hell is a consort? Who will I be consorting with?" Dean screeched.

Sam laughed again but didn't respond. He pulled Dean to him and coaxed him to stand up. Dean once again buried his face in Sam’s shoulder, inhaling the scent that was uniquely his brother. He still smelled of fruity shampoo, Dean thought with a smile. After a few moments, however, and a deeper inhalation, Dean noticed other scents. Smoke, blood, sulfur.

Looking up into Sam’s beautiful face, Dean whispered, “Christo.”

Sam’s eyes turned black for a brief moment then he blinked them back to hazel.

Pushing Sam away, Dean reached for his gun that he’d set on the table and pointed it at Sam’s chest. “You’re not my brother.”

“You know that won’t work on me.” Sam said and put his hands up in a placating manner. “I am your brother, Dean. I know this is confusing, shocking even, but I promise I will explain everything after the ceremony.”

“Because you’re a demon.” Dean said, gun still pointed at Sam’s chest, then “Ceremony?” They both looked at Dean’s trembling hand. 

“Oh, Dean. I am so much more than a demon. I am also your brother. The boy whose diaper you changed, who you taught to tie his shoes. The one you explained sex to and gave his first beer. All that history, all those emotions are in me. Now, I’m just...more.”

“More what? More evil? My brother was never evil.” 

“No? I didn’t have visions of death? Didn’t move things with my mind? Didn’t kill to survive? There’s always been something different about me. Not good or bad; just a collection of choices. I thought after dad, you’d realize that.” 

“What do you mean?” Dean lowered the gun incrementally, still pointing it in his wavering hand. “What does dad have to do with this?”

“Dad sold his soul for you by giving up the one thing that would have protected us from Azazel. He didn’t even try to find another way to save you.”

“But that’s not evil.” Dean replied.

“No, it's not. It was short-sighted. Mom also made a deal with a demon, a deal that set me on my path. We've both suffered because of the consequences of bad choices. Some our own, others thrust upon us.”

“A path to where? Hell? Becoming a demon?”

“A path to becoming King.” Sam stepped slowly closer to Dean, put his hand over the gun and gently lowered it. "A path to you becoming mine, as I have been yours since the day dad put me in yours arms and told you to get me outside."

Dean didn’t stop him, his eyes still glued to the face of the brother he loved. The brother he failed. He didn’t understand anything that was happening, nothing that Sam said, but his tired heart couldn’t deny having Sam in his presence made him feel more alive than he’d ever felt.

As if reading his mind, Sam smiled. “I know, Dean. What you did for me. How you stayed with me in the cabin. Your refusal to leave my body. Your fight with Bobby and Rufus. I know. I also know about your suicidal monster hunts. But you don’t have to be alone anymore. I’m right here.”

“How?”

Sam shook his head again and rubbed a hand down his face. “Sweet, beautiful, stubborn Dean. So many questions. So little time." Smiling, Sam said somewhat arrogantly, "I hacked into Angel radio.”

“Angels are real?” Dean gasped.

“There you go missing the point again,” Sam laughed.

Dean smiled and reflectively punched Sam in the arm. The gesture so familiar yet startling it had both of them moving at once. Dean dropped the gun, Sam pulled him into his arms.

The embrace was painful. Sam kissing Dean’s hair. “God, I missed you. I missed you so fucking much. They wouldn’t let me come to you until I finished the trials. I’ve destroyed so much of hell because of it.”

Talk of hell, kings, centuries lived without being by his side, Dean was reminded of his bone-weary exhaustion. Sam going to hell. Azazel, his mom and dad; it was too much information for his bruised heart to process. He just needed Sam. He just wanted to feel Sam in his arms and forget the time that passed without him.

“I missed you, too,” he whispered. Sam kissed his hair again, his forehead, his cheeks. Dean soaked in the sensation and warmth of Sam’s lips. Put his hand over Sam’s steadily beating heart. So fucking alive.

When Sam settled his lips over Dean’s, Dean didn’t hesitate to return the kiss. Sam’s groaned and moved his hands to cup Dean’s face, change the angle, deepen the kiss. His breath was oddly sweet for a demon, his taste something like honey. Dean only spared a brief thought about this being his baby brother. His dead baby brother.

“Stop thinking so much.” Sam said as he reluctantly pulled away. “I’m here now.”

Dean smiled and nodded.

Sam grabbed Dean’s hands, laced their fingers together. “Will you come with me, Dean?”

“Where?”

“Does it matter?” he asked, his face now soft and happy.

_No_ , Dean thought. _Not at all_. After a year of so much longing and death, Dean realized he would follow this new Sam anywhere. This warm, vibrant, living accumulation of everything Dean ever wanted or needed. Dean would follow him straight into hell.

“No, I suppose it doesn’t.”

“Good,” Sam smiled. Pulling away from Dean slowly but keeping one of their hands linked. “It’s time to go.”

Dean nodded and followed Sam out of the motel, leaving all his belongings behind. He didn’t question it when several people, probably demons, walked up to Sam and respectively bowed their heads.

“Sire,” one said, a female with dark black hair and coal black eyes. “Your supplicants await you in the throne room. Everything is ready for the ceremony.”

“Good,” Sam replied, not looking at her at all but focused on Dean’s face. Reaching over and placing two fingers on Dean’s forehead, Sam tilted his head to the side and asked, “How do you feel about public sex?”

“What?!” Dean exclaimed before everything went dark.

**Author's Note:**

> I've done a bit of editing since this was first posted. Things didn't fit with the sequel I plan to write.
> 
> Thanks so much for reading. Comments welcome.
> 
> Not beta'd, so my mistakes are my own great shame. ;)


End file.
